Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 257 Roberts +P vs Standard

The only 80 gr TTSX I've tried was out of my .240 Wby at 3,600 fps. Evidently that speed was a bit much for that bullet, as there was a huge blast effect on a WT chest wall, unimpressive pencil thru the chest cavity and a slow kill. They say mono's don't have a velocity ceiling, just not sure how true that is from a practical standpoint.

Not sure how the .25 cal version would do at Roberts speed, probably OK. What's your experience with it?

The bullet I now use in the .240 Wby. is the 100 gr. Partition, which shoots half MOA and is a killer. Gun is an HS Precision SPL in a McM Hunter's Edge. Occasionally the Partition proves to be the best shooting bullet in a gun and that's never a bad thing. HS makes their own cut rifle barrels in house and from what I've seen and experienced, they're about as good as Brux or Krieger, at least it shoots as good as those barrels in my other rifles.

Don't get me wrong, the 6mm 80 gr. TTSX was super accurate, but after that experience, IMO not the best WT bullet for that gun.

DF

The 80 TTSX is the only consistently accurate I have found for my 257R M70. ( 22" FWT contour bbl on a short action lightweight). Shoots lights out and hammers bambi. Just short of 3400fps. Never recovered one.

May have to check those out. Never tried them.

I have a sample of 90 gr. Absolute Hammer's to try. Those reportedly will run at around 3,450 fps, and should be accurate.

Hammer sells 15 bullet sample packs in about anything they make, which is handy to try before investing in a larger number. That helps, as they are expensive.

DF

Edited to ask, what's your load for those 80 gr. TTSX's in your Roberts?

in my family the ladies and youth all now have 257 Roberts rifles i made sure of that after a few years of to many different cartridges in rifles and now i got my 10 yr. old grandson a real nice 257 Roberts Ruger #1 , i plan on getting some 75 gr. Hammer Hunter bullets and using Reloader 17 powder , i notice in the Federal Cartridge small brochure type reloading manual i have Federal used Reloader 17 for the 257 Roberts. when i am with my Grandson it will be the only rifle with us Grandson`s 257 Roberts in a Ruger #1 Grandson will be doing all the shooting tell his tags are filled !

Lots of great stories and discussion in this thread. Thanks to all - most enjoyable.

I'll add another endorsement to the 100 TSX in the Roberts. I shot it at a little over 3100 FPS in my old 722 as my only hunting rifle and load for a decade and it never failed me. Never lost a critter hit with that load and most DRT'ed.

All the best,
Rex

I guess I missed out on the Clay Harvey writings unless I skimmed his articles and blew it off as rank amateur. There are those magazine writers who are certainly not subject matter experts and it usually shows, sooner or later. That guy sounds more like a con artist than anything else.

Upon further review, looks like he went room temp.

https://www.echovita.com/us/obituaries/nc/high-point/oris-clayton-harvey-jr-15327640

I keep circling back to wishing that there was some sort of formula that would put some of these older cartridges - handloaded, of course - at or near the 65,000 PSI SAAMI limit. For instance, I'd love to know what a 7x57, in particular, would do velocity-wise with various bullets at 65k. Same with anything else that isn't loaded to the same pressures. It seems rather arbitrary to me that even some of the newer cartridges aren't given 65k as the max while some older cartridges, like the 6mm Rem and .270 Win, are. I suppose that the only way to approximate it without a piezometer is to use Quick Load or something like that. I've tried to decipher JB's 4:1 rule, but I'm not sure it's giving me what I'm looking for. Of course, I'm probably totally misunderstanding it as well, but there's nothing new in that!

RevMike, that’s the underlying issue for me as well. I don’t have a huge library of reloading manuals and the books I do have are pretty dated, so I look up online load information like the data that Barnes publishes. For an older cartridge like the 7x57 or in my case the 257Rob, I get starting and max loads, but only a vague reference to the pressure. Considering what they are charging these days for bullets, etc it would be nice if they were a little less stingy with the information.

Here's an example. To be clear I'm not telling you what to do, I'm simply providing a first order approximation to model the situation. The operating assumption is that we may assume linearity in the calculations of the relationships between charge weight, pressure and velocity. This is quite reasonable when single based powders are used in the "typical" pressure ranges.

I checked Hodgdon's online data for the 7x57 using a 140 grain Ballistic tip and H4350. The pressures were listed in CUP, not PSI, but the principle is the same. The highest pressure cartridges with CUP specs, 300 H&H for example, top out about 54,000 CUP. So I'll consider that to be the ceiling for this calculation.

Consider the 7x57 data in ordered pairs like (charge weight in grains, pressure in CUP). So we have (43.0 , 40,400) and (46.5 , 46,000).

If we calculate (change in charge weight) / (change in pressure) we get (46.5 - 43) / (46000 - 40400) = .000625 grains per CUP.

Now suppose we want to go to the 54,000 CUP ceiling. From the upper listed data point that's a change of 54,000 - 46,000 = 8,000 CUP. So now we may find (8,000 CUP) x (.000625 grains/CUP) = 5 grains. That is, the projected charge increase to move the pressure from the listed 46,000 CUP to the ceiling 54,000 CUP is 5 grains. [Side note: I'm not really familiar with 7x57 case capacity, so I don't know how well five more grains will fit in there.]

Now we use this number to calculate a velocity projection. The listed data for charge and velocity produces a similar set of ordered pairs (charge in grains , velocity in fps).

(43 , 2530) and (46.5 , 2682) So we have the ratio (2682 - 2530) / (46.5 - 43) = 152/3.5 = 43.43 fps per grain

Our charge projected increase is 5 grains, so now we have 5 grains x 43.43 fps/grain = 217.15 fps change. 217 in round figures.

Listed max velocity + projected increase = 2682 + 217 = 2899 fps. So we're projecting a 2900 fps ceiling for this combination.

Testing this model is where a good chronograph and at least five shots per charge weight at increments leading to the projected maximum should be used to make sure we're staying in the linear region.

Sorry the 4-to-1 Rule seems complicated! I'll give an example and see if it helps, comparing the .257 Roberts to the .25-06:

The .25-06 holds around 62 grains of water/powder, compared to the .257's 52 grains. If we divide 62 by 52, the difference is slightly more than 19%.

Divide 19% by four, and the result is 4.75%. This means the .257 is capable of around 95% of the velocity of the .25-06, when loaded to the same pressure in the same length barrel.

Most .25-06 handloaded data lists around 3300 fps as the top velocity for 100-grain bullets, using the best (fastest-velocity) powders--and almost all is listed for 24" barrels. This means that with the best powders the .257 can get around 95% of .25-06 velocities from 24" barrels, which means 3135 fps.

The SAAMI Maximum Average Pressure for the .25-06 is 63,000 PSI. I have no idea why it's not 65,000, but one guess would be to keep pressures slightly lower in older rifles put together when the .25-06 was still a wildcat--but there it is. This means 65,000 PSI loads in the .257 might get around 3150 with 100-grain bullets from a 24" barrel.

When I was much younger, I pushed 100-grain Hornady Spire Points and Nosler Partitions to 3250 fps from the 24" barrel of my Remington 722 .257 using IMR4350, with none of the "traditional" signs of high pressure. But anymore 3150 fps seems to be sufficient--which is the velocity of the Ramshot Hunter/100-grain TTSX load Eileen's has used in her NULA .257 for many years--which also has a 24" barrel. She's taken plenty of pronghorns and deer with the load, and one cow elk.

would be interesting to figure the recoil difference too 257 Roberts VS. 25-06 ? >if someone feels they just got too shoot as fast or faster than a 25-06 just buy a 257 Weatherby mag. . > myself i am starting to really like/ enjoy the 257 Roberts more its accurate and very little recoil for my beat up old shoulders, 10 yr. old Grandson can handle the 257 Roberts well too.

I like the way I can keep the rifle and scope on the target, even with a light rifle like the Montana.

I’ve had and used all three rounds. The Roberts is the only one still in my safe. Others were traded.

DF

Wouldn't felt recoil have other variables involved other than the cartridge? Stock design and the overall package weight come to mind.

I've owned at least one rifle chambered in 257 Roberts since 1982, but I've shot the Roberts in pre-'64 Model 70s since the late 1960s. For a long time, I championed the 257 Roberts, 257 AI, and 25-284 over the 25-06 because they were different, while the 25-06 was too common and plebian for a sophisticated gun guy like me. However, after buying a Marlin XL7 in 25-06 from the free classified ads on this site in 2012, I decided that a 25-06 with a 22" barrel wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Have owned, handloaded for, and hunted big game a lot with .25-caliber cartridges including the .250-3000 Savage, 257 Roberts, .257 Roberts Ackley Improved, .25-06 and .257 Weatherby Magnum for many years. All will kill game up to elk with the right bullet and bullet placement--and within the range the bullet will expand and penetrate.

While I realize this isn't the minutiae argument the Campfire prefers, this has been my experience with probably 100 big game animals.

Oh, and the .25s also work on varmints...

And the amazing part is that you have been able to accomplish all that with bullets that have BCs less than .60!

i also have a 257 Creedmoor with a brux barrel contour same as a Remington varmint barrel ,
i also have a Remington 30 express with a heavy contour #3 Brux barrel that`s all customize . both have a 8 twist barrel and both will shoot 2`s and 3`s 5 shot groups at 100 yards only thing is the 257 Roberts i have killed deer with , likes any size bullet in a 25 caliber , easy to carry hunting and that old 257 Roberts is one heck of easy cartridge to load for too. i have 2 cases of loaded 257 Roberts ammo ready for the family and plan on loading even more for their future too.

I still recall my Aunt using a .257 Roberts on everything - sage rats, coyotes, cats, muleys, black bears and elk.

The choices back then was are you a silvertip or core lokts fan.

And very wimpy factory ammo. Which is what my grandmother used to take the same basic array of game.

But she was a very good shot--and never used a scope. Also apparently never used a shotgun to wingshoot gamebirds, instead preferring a pump .22.

She knew Ed McGivern pretty well, because she also lived in Lewistown, Montana--where she also eventually became the superintendent of the Fergus County school system. She had Ed demonstrate his skills on the high-school football field for the students--which included my father.

Cool story. She was a crack shot. That’s no small achievement. Good genes.

DF